


A Sacred Exchange

by rsadelle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:25:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all normal, until Sid's taking a nap in the middle of summer and wakes up from a dream he knows wasn't his feeling like he might cry. He doesn't even know what the dream was about - the dialogue was all in Russian his dreaming mind couldn't quite catch, and images in dreams don't always help make sense out of things - but he knows it felt like Geno, and like sadness and loneliness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sacred Exchange

**Author's Note:**

> Trope meme ficlet for grim_lupine for the prompt "Sid/Geno, telepathy."

The problem with being a telepath, instead of an empath or something, is that it only gets you so far over the language barrier. If Sid can take the time to visualize something and it's not too abstract a concept, he can get it across to Geno even without the language, but you don't have that kind of time on the ice, so at the beginning it's him thinking, "pass," and Geno thinking things at him in Russian that he doesn't know if they mean Geno's open or has two men on him or if they just mean he's having fun. (Usually they mean he's having fun, no matter what else is supposed to be contained in the message. Geno loves hockey as much as Sid does.)

That part gets better over time. Geno learns more English, Sid learns enough Russian for them to communicate even if Geno laughs at his pronunciation when he tries to say it with his mouth instead of his mind, and it makes them pretty effective on the ice.

It's all normal, until Sid's taking a nap in the middle of summer and wakes up from a dream he knows wasn't his feeling like he might cry. He doesn't even know what the dream was about - the dialogue was all in Russian his dreaming mind couldn't quite catch, and images in dreams don't always help make sense out of things - but he knows it felt like Geno, and like sadness and loneliness.

Sid grabs his phone and texts, _What's wrong?_ even though he knows it's the middle of the night in Magnitogorsk, before he realizes that nothing about that is right. It's not that he's never had anyone else's dreams before, but telepathy isn't supposed to work over that kind of distance, and telepaths aren't supposed to be able to exchange emotions without some kind of empath in the mix.

Sid gets up from his nap and makes sure to keep his phone close, so he's ready when it vibrates with Geno's reply: _nothing wrong_

Sid hits call and listens to barely half a ring before Geno answers and says, "Nothing wrong."

"I had a dream," Sid says. "Your dream, I think," and he was so, so sure about that because everything about the dream felt like Geno's mind in his, but if everything's fine, maybe he was wrong. "It was sad."

Geno makes an admonishing noise. "Was just a dream. Nothing wrong. Stop worrying."

Sid makes a face. "I'm the Captain," he says. "It's my job to worry."

"Worry about negotiations," Geno says.

Sid's exasperation comes out in a sigh. "I wish we could just sign an agreement already. I just want to play hockey."

"You always want to play hockey," Geno says.

It's not until much later that Sid realizes Geno never said it wasn't his dream.

*

Sid has the same kind of dreams a couple more times, including one the night before one of the CBA talks, the kind where he has to be dressed up and represent more than just himself. He doesn't mind that part of it - they have to make sure that other guys get to play the way he does - but he's not quite on his game today.

It takes some work to wind his way through the room to Ovechkin, but he manages it, just as Ovechkin turns away from the guys he was talking to.

Sid manages the whole hi-how are you-I'm fine small talk portion of the conversation before he asks, "Have you talked to Geno lately?"

Ovechkin raises his eyebrows and says, "Some."

"Does he seem okay?"

Ovechkin's eyebrows go up even further. "Zhenya's fine."

Sid must be projecting _freaked out_ all over the place, because he gets hit with a wave of calm, and they've been in the same place often enough that Ovechkin usually respects Sid's boundaries. Words are fine, but Sid doesn't like it when empaths push feelings at him.

The hell of it is that it does actually make him calm down, enough that he can share a silent joke with Ovechkin when the media isn't content with Don's statement and wants to talk to him.

*

It's near the end of the summer when Sid says, "When you get back-" and Geno interrupts him to say, "Not coming back."

"What?"

"Not now." Geno sighs. "Going to be a lockout. You know, I know, everyone know. I'm staying here, play for Magnitogorsk. Already have a contract."

"Oh," Sid says. "Good for you."

"You come play with me," Geno says.

"Maybe. I'm hoping this isn't going to last long, and I should probably stay here for a while, be the face of things, at least until the end of the year, I think."

"You should play hockey," Geno says.

"Yeah," Sid says. "We're going to try to keep up some sort of schedule so no one gets out of shape."

Geno laughs, a giant sound that warms Sid all the way through. "And you on ice more than anyone."

"Probably," Sid admits.

*

The lockout drags on, Sid keeps up with practices and watches Geno's games when he can, and then suddenly they have an agreement and seventy-two hours for everyone to get back to their teams for mandatory practices. Sid gives a lot of interviews about what it all means, for the league and for him, and he's doing his best to maintain his media presence, but he's pretty sure he's smiling more than he's supposed to be.

Geno shows up at his door two hours before their first mandatory practice and locks him into a crushing hug, a litany of _SidSidSid_ pushing into Sid's head. He sends back his own litany of _GenoGenoGeno_.

Sid pulls on Geno's arm after they've hugged for a ridiculously long time and guides him right back out the door. "You have to show me what you were doing in Russia. I think we can do some of that here." He sends an image of a play he saw Geno make, and gets a rush of mixed English and Russian back that makes him laugh and say, "Slow down," and by the time they get to the rink, they're only halfway through thinking out the list of everything Sid wants them to do this season.

They put their gear on and head out onto the ice to try some of it out.

"Too slow," Geno yells when one of his passes doesn't connect. "Not enough hockey."

Sid laughs and sends the retrieved puck sailing across the ice to Geno. He follows after it, battling to get it away from Geno. "Not enough Russians to practice with."

"Lots of Russians in Magnitogorsk." Geno swings away from Sid with the puck.

Sid doesn't bother to reply to that out loud, and he follows the old patterns he knows from playing with Geno and the new ones he thinks he's learned from watching him until he can get the puck.

They don't stop, alternating passing drills with variations on keep away, until there's a whistle from down the ice and they pass the puck back and forth on a lazy skate to where Dan's standing behind the boards.

"Practice isn't for twenty minutes," Dan says with a smile, "but I should have known you two would be out here. Good to have you back."

"Good to be back," Sid says, with Geno echoing him just a beat behind.

Dan waves them back out onto the ice. "Let's see what you've got."

*

Things are good. They're playing hockey again, just the way Sid wants to, everything he's ever wanted, and while he still sometimes picks up bits of Geno's dreams, there aren't any more of the sad ones he shouldn't have been able to feel anyway. Sid mostly forgets about those for a while, until the day Tanger brings his kid to the rink.

He's tiny, under a year old, but old enough to be a little aware of his surroundings. Sid gets to hold him for a while, until Geno elbows into his space and says, "My turn. Soft hands, easy pass."

Sid chuckles, and hands the baby to Geno, so he can have his turn before they have to go do something that isn't stand around with an adorable baby.

Sid had been speaking mostly French, but Geno talks to the baby in Russian, and maybe it's that or maybe it's that the baby is taking up Geno's conscious attention, but Sid gets a flash of too many things in quick succession to make sense, and then that same sadness and loneliness from Geno's dreams, no matter how impossible that is.

Geno doesn't look sad, or lonely. He looks _happy_ , delighted to be saying whatever it is he's saying to the baby, and the feeling only lasts a few seconds.

The memory of it lasts longer, and this time Sid pays attention to it. It was easier to dismiss when it was just a dream, but harder when it's something he felt when they were both awake.

He nudges Geno into his car after practice, and makes them both lunch. They keep talking about practice - Sid thinks they can do better with their passing; Geno thinks he's worrying too much - but Geno shuts down the mental side of their conversation for a moment when Sid flashes on the visit with Tanger's kid.

Sid opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "Do you want a baby?" is what finally comes out. "Is that why you were sad this summer?"

Geno looks like he's going to deny it for a moment, and then he floods Sid with a host of images of kids and babies and Sid holding Tanger's kid, along with a long mix of Russian and English that's too fast and garbled for Sid to get more meaning out of than that he was right.

"So many kids," Geno says, and now he actually looks sad. "And little ones, babies. Visited them at the-" he flashes a series of images at Sid, a building, kids, adults who aren't their parents.

"Orphanage?" Sid suggests.

Geno nods. "Not wanted. I want."

He looks so miserable that Sid frowns with him. "You could," he says. "Adopt one of them, or something."

Geno makes a face. "Big mess." He sends the rest of it mentally, fuzzy images of imagined press coverage, him with a baby alone, a rosier image of him with another indistinct adult and a baby.

Sid absorbs all of that, turns it around in his head, wraps it up with the kind of media attention he's used to, and says, "It would be like that anyway, however you got or had a baby, right?" He doesn't wait for Geno's agreement before saying, "So you should have a baby if you want one. Or an older kid. Or whatever."

"Hard to do alone," Geno says.

"We could do it together," Sid says before he can talk himself out of it.

"You would?" Geno asks, and he sends an image of the two of them and a baby in a Penguins jersey that's clear but also manages to be a question.

Sid grabs onto the image greedily, because they look so happy in it, and they would be. "Yes," he says. "The media circus would be worse and we'd need a nanny" - he sends back the image with a hazy person waiting by a stroller in the background - "but yes."

Geno grins at him, and even though he shouldn't be able to, Sid can feel how happy he is.

**Author's Note:**

> Title loosely taken from Jamie Lee Curtis: "We look at adoption as a very sacred exchange. It was not done lightly on either side. I would dedicate my life to this child."


End file.
